Sophocles’s Oedipus Tyrannus shows that humans' problems do not appear when they listen to the gods, but when they listen to themselves imagining that they follow the gods. Instead of placing themselves in the service of the god, as Socrates does in Plato’s Apology, they only think that they follow the divinity, while they actually act according to their own understanding. If Sophocles’s play is a synopsis of this danger, Plato’s dialogue proposes a different attitude before divinity: instead of interpreting (...) the gods and acting on this interpretation, you would need to enter into their service by studying the meaning of their communication. (shrink)

I . Mental time travel is a contemporary philosophical notion, although at first glance it may seem anachronistic, mental time travel and the Aristotelian theory of memory are in a way compatible . What is proposed is a theoretical dialogue between the contemporary research in philosophy of memory and its most traditional theory. In this sense the way to analyze the compatibility is to present the fundamental notions of mental time travel in analogy to the Aristotelian system to an extent (...) that the notion of mental time travel may be extracted from the Aristotelian system, therefore the Aristotelian theory of mental time travel. The taxonomical discrepancy of one system of thought and the other is addressed via correspondence, approaching the two systems by what each notion expresses. II . Mental time travel is, through our capacity of perceiving time, here understood as chronesthesia, a power that gives access to events in time, which are not present, and according to the temporal orientation of the mental time travel, the events are about the past or the future . First, there is the capacity of perceiving time, in a way that the re-production of the past and the production of possible future events are dependent. Memory is re-production of what is past, then mental time travel past oriented, which is grounded by chronesthesia . III . Memory as mental time travel is what specific concerns the correspondence with the Aristotelian theory of memory . To address this, there is the need to address the problem of subjective time and mind in the Aristotelian theory of memory. What is nearer to mind is the soul, ψυχή , and to experience subjective time, the way someone when recollects says in their soul that is recollecting that first said, or heard or thought what is being recalled . (Mem. 429b15–29). Mem.449b23–24. αει γαπ οταν ενεργη κατα μνημονευειν, ουτως εν τη ψυχη λεγει οτι προτερον τουτο λεγει, οτι προτερον τουτο ηκουσεν η ησθετο η ενόησεν. IV . If someone has an occurence of episodic memory. To explain this case via mental time travel: someone (i) experienced an event, (ii) has chronesthesia functionally grounding the experience and the possibility to access the experience of the anterior event after it is past, (iii) is oriented to the past, among past experiences it is possible to re-produce the specific anterior event . Considering mental time travel with causal relation, what it is not necessary to it. V . The Aristotelian theory also disposes of perception of time as fundamental to memory, μνημη . The perception of time is placed as perception as a whole, common perception, αισθησις κοινη. Considering time, χρονος , understood as counting of the anterior-posterior, αριθμος κινησεως κατα το προτερον και υστερον (Phys.IV,11,219b1–2), and what is countable is perceived by perception of the commons, αισθεσιν κοινην . The common perception is first and responsible for memory and imagination, φαντασια . Thus memory is dependent of imagination, because it works through images; and of perception and perception of time, for there is no memory without the perception of something before and time lapse; and it is grounded by common perception . VI . Now the case of episodic memory, as remembering, μνημονεύουν, and recollecting, αναμνεσις. (i) an event causes in who is perceiving, (ii) from the sense organs remains something and imprints something in the soul, (iii) what remains is an image, similarity of the perceived, εικον, and that is what one re-produces when remembering and what may be recovered through a recollection search . VII . The relation between contemporary notion of time perception and common perception was established. Memory as dependent of perception of time and works as responsible for what is of the past. In such way leads the conclusion that remembering and recollecting can be considered mental time travel past oriented. (shrink)

I examine and compare Confucian wu-wei rule and Aristotelian non-imperative rule as two models of non-impositional rule. How exactly do non-impositional rulers, according to these thinkers, generate order? And how might a Confucian/Aristotelian dialogue concerning non-impositional rule in distinctively political contexts proceed? Are Confucians and Aristotelians in deep disagreement, or do they actually have more in common than they initially seem?

Diogenes Laertius (8.63-6) preserves a fascinating account of the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles' life. There, drawing on evidence from Aristotle, Xanthus, and Timaeus of Tauromenium, the biographer provides several anecdotes which are meant to demonstrate how Empedocles had, contrary to expectation, been a democratic philosopher - a paradox of itself in Ancient Greece. This article unpacks the complex web woven by Diogenes and argues that there is no good reason to assume that Empedocles was indeed a democratic philosopher, and moreover, that (...) neither Xanthus nor Aristotle thought him so. Indeed, what Diogenes actually preserves for us is the Hellenistic biographer Timaeus' critical dialectical engagement with the versions Aristotle and Xanthus, in his anachronistic bid to render Empedocles a democratic hero. (shrink)

The present paper proposes to analyse the role of the practical syllogism in G.E.M. Anscombe’s theory of action. To this end, I have rst of all chosen to examine, even if in broad terms, the conception of practical syllogism as it is present in the Aristotelian doctrine, and to reveal/delineate some critical points found within it. The following section is the central part of the paper, where, starting from § 33 of Intention, a re ection is carried out on the (...) practical syllogism, which is among Aristotle’s most signi cant discoveries, chie y bringing into focus its teleological prospective. Action, in Anscombe’s thought, almost seems be the cornerstone of a profound, and in a certain sense “contextual”, comprehension of the subject. (shrink)

Plato’s nephew Speusippus has been widely accepted as the historical person behind the mask of the anti-hedonists in Phlb. 42b–44c. This hypothesis is supported by, inter alia, the link between Socrates’ char- acterization of them as δυσχερεῖς and the frequent references of δυσχέρεια as ἀπορία to Speusippus in Aristotle’s Metaphysics MN. This study argues against assigning any privileged status to Speusippus in the assimilation of δυσχέρεια with ἀπορία. Instead, based on a comprehensive survey of how δυσχερ- words were used in (...) classical antiquity, the semantic shift of δυσχέρεια can be explained in an alternative way. (shrink)

In the June issue of the Classical Review Professor Cook Wilson announces his conversion to the view that in ‘a well-defined group’ of passages in the Nicomachean Ethics λόγος means Reason. While I cannot hope to re-convert Professor Cook Wilson, I feel that it is worth while to try to express the reasons for which it seems difficult to follow him.

Our understanding of the moral philosophy of Aristotle is hampered by a number of modern assumptions we make about the subject. For a start, we are accustomed to thinking about ethics or moral philosophy as being concerned with theoretical questions about actions—what makes an action right or wrong? Modern moral philosophy gives two different sorts of answers to this question. One is in terms of a substantial ethical theory—what makes an action right or wrong is whether it promotes the greatest (...) happiness, or whether it is in accordance with or violates a moral rule, or whether it promotes or violates a moral right. The other sort gives a meta-ethical answer—rightness and wrongness are not really properties of actions, but in describing actions as right or wrong we commend or object to them, express our approval or disapproval or our emotions concerning them. But the ancient Greeks start with a totally different question. Ethics is supposed to answer, for each one of us, the question ‘How am I to live well?’ What this question means calls for some discussion. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that Aristotle's ethical theory shares deep structural similarities with neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. I argue that this assumption is a mistake, and that Aristotle's ethical theory is both importantly distinct from the theories his work has inspired, and independently compelling. I take neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to be characterized by two central commitments: (i) virtues of character are defined as traits that reliably promote an agent's own flourishing, and (ii) virtuous actions are defined as the sorts of actions (...) a virtuous agent reliably performs under the relevant circumstances. I argue that neither of these commitments are features of Aristotle's own view, and I sketch an alternative explanation for the relationship between virtue and happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics. Although, on the interpretation I defend, we do not find in Aristotle a distinctive normative theory alongside deontology and consequentialism, what we do find is a way of thinking about how prudential and moral reasons can come to be aligned through a certain conception of practical agency. (shrink)